Home / news / WSJ Pro: Top Female Deal Makers Shaping Private Equity’s Present & Future – Featuring Elizabeth Bell

WSJ Pro: Top Female Deal Makers Shaping Private Equity’s Present & Future – Featuring Elizabeth Bell

WSJ Pro: Top Female Deal Makers Shaping Private Equity’s Present & Future – Featuring Elizabeth Bell

Meet the 17 women who rank among the private-equity industry’s leading senior and rising star deal makers
By LAURA COOPER, CHRIS CUMMING, LUIS GARCIA, LAURA KREUTZER & ISAAC TAYLOR
Nov. 10, 2019

Each year, Private Equity Analyst honors a group of women who have risen through the ranks at their respective firms to help reshape the face of industry itself. This year’s Women to Watch honorees showcase the depth of experience and talent as well as the range of backgrounds and skills women bring to the negotiating table.

ELIZABETH BELL
Principal, Jaguar Growth Partners
As co-head of Jaguar Growth Partners’ investment team, Elizabeth Bell oversees all stages of the deals the Latin America- focused firm makes anywhere in the region outside Brazil. “It’s a very direct hands-on role with the combination of investment activity as well as ongoing portfolio management,” said Jaguar Managing Partner Thomas McDonald. Since she joined the firm in 2017, Ms. Bell has shown resilience toward the challenges private-equity investors can face in Latin America, Mr. McDonald said. He added that years as a soccer player in high school and college have helped shape her strength. “She has a competitive streak in her that drives her…but also importantly knows what it is to be a team member,” he said. Mr. McDonald has known Ms. Bell since they worked together at Equity International, billionaire Sam Zell’s investment firm. But it’s the experience she gained later during a two-year stint at Aberdeen Asset Management, which invests in private-equity funds, that’s today more valuable for Jaguar, Mr. McDonald said. “I think that makes all of us better and makes the way you look at things more complete, not only from a GP or an investor’s perspective but also from a limited partner’s perspective.”